Chapter Twenty
Crash
“What the fuck’s gotten in to you, Crash? You look like you’ve just dragged your dick across a mile of broken glass,” Blaze says.
“That’s pretty fucking vivid, Blaze. You have experience in that matter?” Mack says.
“Hazing in the smokejumpers is no joke, Mack. I could tell you the kind of stories that would make your balls retract in fear,” he answers.
“Will both of you just stop talking about your cocks and get the fuck back to work?”
I throw open the back end of the cargo truck. Inside is a perfectly restored 1968 Alfa Romeo Spider. It’s a beautiful black machine, sleek, sexy, and every time I open the back of this truck, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. I don’t normally give much of a shit about cars, but I’d have to be even more of a cold, soulless bastard than Violet thinks to not appreciate a car like this.
And we’re about to take it apart.
Well, just a part of it.
One quarter panel. Because, inside this beautiful machine — squirreled away in compartments, concealed beneath the leather upholstery, hidden all throughout this spectacular classic car — is a cache of weapons bound for our customers.
“Get those tools ready, I want this job done with quick. I want us in and out before anyone knows we’re here, because I fucking doubt Max would take kindly to us fucking around in his shop like this. And I doubt he’d also appreciate storing our guns for us, either.”
Mack hops up into the truck and starts to work. It’s a one-man job, which leaves me to stand around at the back end, watching impatiently and thinking about the one thing I have to look forward to: killing these Death’s Disciples and freeing Kendra so I can get the fuck out of Carbon Ridge and back to the job I should’ve been doing all along.
To hell with Violet. It doesn’t matter how she makes me feel, she — and her fucking messy life — are getting between me and my club.
As I watch Mack work, Blaze comes over to stand next to me.
“Seriously, what’s wrong, brother?”
“Nothing.”
“You know you can’t hide that shit from us, right? You look worse than when you broke things off with Rosa. What’s going on?”
“Hey, brothers, would you look at this fucking car? It’s beautiful. This town might suck, but I swear to god, when we’re done with this job, I’m coming back just to hang out with Max. He’s a fucking artist,” Snake calls to us from across the shop, where he’s admiring a cherry red MG sports car that’s sitting six feet high on a mechanic’s hydraulic lift.
“Snake, stay away from that shit and keep your hands to yourself. We can’t have Max finding out we were here. If we piss that old bastard off, he won’t finish fixing our truck no matter what Violet says.”
I stumble a little saying her name. It tastes so bitter in my mouth.
“You broke it off with Violet, huh?” Blaze says.
“When the fuck did you get perceptive?”
“Brother, I’m not. But even I can fucking see when you’re happy one minute — because she’s a fucking kickass chick — and then the next you're down as hell after you just came from seeing her,” he says. “So, what happened?”
“It was the right call, Blaze. Our lives just don’t fit together. And getting involved with her has put not only everything we’re doing at risk, but it’s also putting her life at risk. I care about her, man, and so I had to cut her loose.”
“What’d she have to say about that? Because it looked to me like she fucking likes you.”
“She punched me a few times. If she had her bat around, she probably would’ve tried to take my head off.”
“Damn, what a woman. You sure you’re doing the right thing? A feisty one like that, with her brains and her body, doesn’t come around that often.”
“Being with her puts this whole mission for the club at risk, and I can’t do that to the MC. And what the hell am I going to do if being with me ends up getting her killed? No, it’s too fucking risky,” I say. It hurts to say that, and I have to fight like hell to keep myself steady. I know Violet is a one-in-a-million kind of woman, but my loyalty and my heart belongs to the MC, and I have to remember that. “Besides, she wasn’t happy to hear about the two Death’s Disciples that Snake and I had to take out in her house. If I hadn’t ended it, she would have.”
Blaze nods, but doesn’t respond.
“Got ’em. Boys, come in here and get your fucking guns, because tonight we will have ourselves a fucking enchanted evening in the forest, blowing the heads off these Death’s Disciples motherfuckers,” Mack says, removing a quarter panel from the car and extracting from it a few automatic rifles.
“Snake, stop playing with that car and get the fuck over here and grab a gun,” I shout across the shop.
Snake looks up from his spot at the control console for the mechanic’s lift, startled. And his hand, which was resting on the switchboard, jerks in surprise. He has just enough time to yell out, “Oh shit,” before the hydraulics on the mechanic’s lift release and the beautiful cherry red car falls to the ground with a thunderous crash.
Then the car alarm in the machine goes off. A high-pitched, ear-piercing wail that I’m sure can be heard for miles.
It’s not the only alarm to go off.
The booming crash and the scream of the MG’s alarm sets off the alarm in every other
